Secret Way to the Heart

by Camille Regholec

  “With all that has been happening, I was not sure of anything,” Clara replied, looking down and away from her husband’s searching eyes, but Jayne could sense the truth. She wondered if Clara had been concealing the matter, and Jim’s next words confirmed it.

  “It looks like you are several months pregnant. I would say the baby will be born sometime toward the end of April.”

  “That soon?” Clara asked, her hands cupping the slight bulge at her waistline. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am positive. Remember I am a doctor.” Jim tried to laugh to make this a joyous occasion. “You are further along than your appearance indicates. But I find it hard to imagine you had no prior idea.”

  “Are you accusing me of lying?” Clara asked indignantly. “How dare you!”

  “No, no, my dear.” Jim patted her arm to calm her. “I am sure it is as you say. You rest now, and we will talk about this later.”

  “Yes, we will discuss it on our way home,” Clara agreed, grabbing hold of Jim’s hand. “I will be going home with you tomorrow, and I must pack . . .”

  “You will not be going.” Jim’s words were firm. “I am sorry, but you will have to stay here until after the baby is born in the spring.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.” Jim’s voice was low, but his face showed that the times of compromising were over. “Your fainting proves you are unable to make the long treacherous trip to South Carolina. It is still winter here, and the canals have not yet reopened for the season. The only means of travel is by horse or wagon, and by evidence of your fragile state, it could put our child and yourself in jeopardy. Again, I am sorry, but I will not allow it.”

  “Jim, please.”

  “No, Clara. The subject is closed. You are staying here with my family until after the child’s birth. Mother, Jayne, and Hannah can help you, and I will notify the local doctor to look in occasionally. By the time the child is born, I believe all will be well with this dispute, and I will return to escort you both home.” Without another word, Jim pulled open the door and strode down the hall, straight out the front door, leaving Jayne standing there watching helplessly as a sobbing Clara flung herself back on the bed.

  Jim left the next morning, ignoring the loud sobs of his wife. Clara took to her bed and refused to get up for over a week. When she would not go to church, Jayne suggested she stay behind to keep Clara company. her mother quickly rejected the idea. “I cannot force Clara to go, but you, my dear Jayne, will not encourage her by catering to her childish behavior.”

  News came weekly in the bundle of Ellenville Journals as state after state followed South Carolina and seceded. First it was Florida on the tenth of January, then Alabama on the eleventh. Just a little over a week later, on the nineteenth, Georgia broke away from the Union with Louisiana seceding on January the twenty-sixth.

  As the newspaper increased the number of articles on the country’s division, Clara no longer attempted to mask her dislike. While the older couples were treated with disdain, the very sight of Mary and Pete made Clara furious.

  Jayne wondered about this to her mother, and she smiled sadly at her daughter. “It possibly could be that seeing Mary as not only a happily married woman, but that she is able to maintain a home as well as make a living at the eatery, is what is upsetting Clara. Such accomplishments from a former slave must be more than a rich but untalented Clara can tolerate.”

  Mary attempted to ignore the insults thrown her way, but occasionally she lashed back, her words just as cutting as the young white woman’s. Jayne feared there would be violence between the two and wished God would bring Jim back to be a buffer.

  1861

  Dearest Clara and family,

  After two weeks, I arrived safely in Charleston. I stopped over to visit Uncle Joe in New York City. At this time, I heard that Mayor Fernando Wood of that great metropolis does not like Albany having too much control over New York City. Wood was especially passionate about the metropolitan police, who took their orders from the governor. Wood felt that the police who patrol his city should answer to him, that the city itself could and should have more control over its everyday activities. So Wood wants to secede and make New York City a Southern sympathizing state. He already wrote a letter to the governor of Georgia about their vessel Monticello being taken by Police Superintendent John Kennedy. Mayor Wood never imagined that if fighting broke out, New York City would not side with the South. Wood stated that New Yorkers would not fight for the inferior Negro race.

  This division is apparently escalating even within states. On January 7, 1861, two days before Mississippi became the second state to secede, Mayor Fernando Wood delivered a message to the Common Council, the city’s governing body, proposing that New York assert its independence as a free city by disrupting the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master. That is, the Union. Wood wanted Manhattan Island to become an independent city-state, akin to the seaport free cities of northern Germany. Indeed, he suggested that New York City’s founding charter—which established that New York be, and from henceforth forever hereafter shall be and remain, a free city of itself—already guaranteed its independence. Secession would allow New York to keep that tariff revenue for itself, rather than pass it on to Washington. “As a free city,” Wood said, “with but nominal duty on imports, her local government could be supported without taxation upon her people. Thus we could live free from taxes and have cheap goods nearly duty-free.” Wood himself called the South our best customer. She pays the best prices and pays promptly.

  It seems newspapers have whipped up anti-Lincoln fears among working-class and immigrant voters. One New Orleans editor put it succinctly: Should New York lose the South’s trade, its ships would rot at her docks; grass would grow in Wall Street and Broadway, and the glory of New York, like that of Babylon and Rome, would be numbered with the things of the past.

  James Gordon Bennett Sr., publisher of the New York Herald, the city’s largest newspaper, cautioned the city’s working classes that “if Lincoln is elected, you will have to compete with the labor of four million emancipated Negroes.” “New York belongs almost as much to the South as to the North,” the editor of the New York Evening Post claimed. The city’s businessmen marketed the South’s cotton crop and manufactured everything from cheap clothing for outfitting slaves to fancy carriages for their masters. The New York Daily News—edited by the mayor’s brother, Benjamin Wood—warned New Yorkers that if Lincoln won, “We shall find Negroes among us thicker than blackberries swarming everywhere.”

  Most papers denounced the idea. In the Evening Post, the editor remarked, “It had never suspected Wood of being a fool and inquired if the city should take along the Long Island Sound, the New York Central Railroad, and the Erie Canal.” The Tribune stated, “Fernando Wood evidently wants to be a traitor; it is lack of courage only that makes him content with being a blackguard.”

  It did not get better when I arrived in Charleston. Working at my position within Marine Hospital, I receive suspicious looks from those who wonder why I returned South, leaving behind my Southern bride. When I explain your delicate state, I receive many suggestions on how I should or could have done things differently. Truly, it would have made no difference at all. There is much activity going on, and the people are planning various things, things that I am not told about—and what I do know comes out of the newspapers. It is of no matter that I returned after secession, or that I have lived here with relatives for so long. To the people here, I am no longer nephew, son-in-law, or doctor. I have new titles: Yankee, Northerner, or Unionist. Spy and traitor are thrown in for good measure.

  I am sure you have heard that on Christmas Eve a surprised William Russell, the president of the Pony Express, was arrested for suspicion of embezzlement by a U.S. marshal in New York City. He had been accused of borrowing bonds from the Indian Trust Fund worth
$870,000 dollars and using them to get loans. Russell was transported to Washington D.C., and bail is set at $500,000 dollars. Not able to pay bail, Russell is remanded to jail, and on January twenty-ninth this year of 1861, Russell was indicted by a grand jury for the District of Columbia for cheating, defrauding, and impoverishing the United States. Oh, how the people cheer in the streets that Russell has caused financial havoc to the United States! That the money he embezzled was for war supplies makes them almost giddy! It is only when they realize their own investments may be at risk does anger arise. There are others involved, and one can only pray that the government—the Union—can somehow recoup some of it.

  Clara, my love, I miss you terribly. Time seems to take wing during the day, but at night, the hours pass as slowly as molasses during a cold winter’s freeze. The lack of your presence in our home and in our bed grows more difficult with each passing hour. It is only the thought of our unborn child’s safety that keeps me from requesting your return. Clara, please listen to Mother and Hannah. They are well known in the area for their help in times of medical need. I know you also want what is best for our son or daughter. Rest, my dear, and I will pray your confinement will not seem so long. By my calculations, it will be only a few more months before the crocuses are gone, the daffodils unfold, and our child will be delivered. I pray I will be able to return before the birth, but if the tensions between the states are not resolved, I fear a war is inevitable.

  Jayne, I hope you and Clara will become the sisters each has never had. Aunt Hannah and Uncle George, as well as Mary and Pete, I know that God will guide you in all that you do. Father, I know it seems only yesterday, but I am sending yet more baggage up to you. I believe you will be able to send it on its way. Mother, know that I love you for all you have done and are doing now. As Scripture says, greet each other with a holy kiss.

  To Clara, my eternal love, and God’s blessings on you all, Jim

  Chapter 9

  As the months slowly passed, Jayne's mother tried to entice the very pregnant and very irritated Clara to get up and become involved in something that might get her mind off herself and connect her with others in the community. Jayne was amazed at her mother’s quiet persistence and long suffering approach toward the disagreeable young woman.

  “If you come with us today, you will be able to join the quilting bee,” She suggested one Saturday. “There are three other women with child that are working on this project.”

  “What project?” Clara asked, squirming in discomfort, her question showing how bored she must have been feeling.

  “The women of the church, many whose families have been around since the church’s beginning, are making a beautiful quilt. Each center square of the simple, nine-patch pattern will contain names and dates in memory of those godly men and women who helped form the early church in this valley.”

  “You really do not expect me to lend a hand to any project that will aid you Northerners in any way?” Clara struggled to her feet, her face red from exertion or anger, Jayne was not sure. When her mother’s hand of assistance was slapped away, and a foul word was directed at her, Jayne no longer had any doubts. Clara pushed past them, and Jayne and her mother watched in silence as Clara exited the room.

  Later that afternoon, Jayne looked around the fellowship hall of the church and silently thanked God for this community of believers. In the last few months, her own heart toward God had changed, but she still had many unanswered questions.

  The Ladies’ Aid Society, immediately following a Bible study, gathered together with renewed vigor to finish the memorial quilt. This project was not only the means to raise funds, but it was a tribute to the founding families of the Phillipsport Methodist Episcopal Church. Jayne's mother reminisced aloud on how these fine people helped her in her walk with God. “I miss them all.” She sighed. “All those fine people who have gone home to the Lord and those who moved away.”

  The younger ladies of the church had each made a sampler to be judged for the honor of stitching those names in. Jayne was ashamed of herself, that her own art of pouting had worked months earlier in getting her mother to let her abandon her sampler with its loose stitches and tangled knots. It had been an act of defiance that kept her from unraveling and repairing it before she submitted her sampler to the judges.

  When Jayne was notified she was to be given a square to embroider, she knew not a single sampler had been rejected. Each young lady then received a square of cloth and the information that needed to be embroidered on it. Determined to make her mother proud, Jayne doggedly worked the stitches on the square. In all honesty, Jayne did not think it was the best, but she knew her mother was pleased with her willingness to participate. That alone more than compensated for the various mistakes in her needlework. Jayne just prayed it would hold up through the years.

  “It is so wonderful to spend time with special friends,” Her mother said to Jayne when she came and sat by the quilters after finishing her needlework. She nodded her head toward Cindy, her longtime friend and teacher in the art of quilting. “It was Cindy who not only showed me the techniques, but also how to thank God for each part of the process unto completion. Cindy’s deep insight of how she sees Jesus in every scrap and every stitch astonishes me. Cindy could have made a great preacher if she had taken a mind to it.”

  “Oh, there is no way I could have done that.” Cindy laughed, her cheeks flushing. “Who would have heard above the wailing of my seven little ones?”

  “They were good children, Cindy,” Jayne's mother pointed out as she handed a needle and thread to her daughter. “Their going home to the Lord were hard times.”

  “That they were,” Cindy replied huskily. “But God left me my grandson, William, who is a fine lawyer.”

  Cindy patted her friend’s hand before she turned to Jayne and lifted her own needle.“

  Jayne, when you get the rhythm down, you will see how the working of tiny stitches is rewarding as well as soothing to you. The continuous motion of the needle going up through the three levels of material to be caught by the fingers waiting above and then sending the needle back down through is a continuous back and forth journey. What first appears to be a pile of unrelated scraps of material taken from various people’s well-used clothing can end up becoming not only a useful item, but a beautiful one as well.”

  “I always marveled at that, too,” Jayne admitted as she tried to untangle her thread. Reaching over, Cindy gently helped her as she continued explaining her thoughts on quilting.

  “If everything we have is from the Lord,” Cindy said. “Then we can look upon everything as of the Lord’s making and plan.” She held up the threaded needle. “We can compare this needle and thread to God’s continuous touch in our lives. The base of the quilt would be us, the batting as God’s love, and the top all that happens to a person. God’s touch is what threads all three levels of our being. Each scrap is an experience or a person who has touched our life. There are some parts or people who are not as nice as others, and time and distance have separated them from the center, but that makes no difference to God. All are combined in the pattern of God’s design and maintained by God’s touch, and they join together to form the beautiful person one has become.”

  “See, a great preacher.” Jayne's mother smiled at her best friend and then her daughter. “I never get tired of Cindy showing how this effort is not only soothing to one’s spirit but is also a work done ‘as unto the Lord.’ In all honesty, Jayne, do you still find it as boring as you had commented on several occasions?”

  “Surprisingly, not anymore.” Jayne smiled. “I guess I am growing up.”

  “Good afternoon.” The deep vibrant tones of a man’s voice startled everyone present as the womenfolk’s chatter halted and they turned their eyes toward the voice.

  Jayne gasped as she looked up into the hazel eyes of Jeremiah Bronson, who stoo
d almost beside her. His glance scanned the many faces before briefly resting upon Jayne’s. For a moment, their eyes locked before his jaw clenched and he turned his view on Jayne's mother. “I am sorry to disturb you fine ladies, but I am looking for the reverend’s wife, who I was told might be here. I have a message for her from her husband.”

  “You just missed her, sir. She has gone to pay a visit to Mrs. Conner, who has been suffering from sciatica. Her farm is about two miles down the road on the left of the canal.”

  “Sciatica? How providential! That’s one of the painful illnesses my uncle also suffers from,” Jeremiah Bronson replied. “Possibly that is where I will find out how better to care for him. Thank you.”

  He gave a small smile and a general nod of farewell as he once again glanced at the various women within the room. To Jayne, he seemed to purposely ignore her. Without another word, he turned and climbed the stairs to the outside, and almost every woman excitedly exclaimed over the man’s appearance. Jayne was thankful no one commented on her silence or on what had been an obvious snub to her by the strange man.

  How can a pastor act that way? Jayne thought angrily until God touched her spirit and she realized his actions just mirrored her own. She had not greeted nor bid farewell to him. He may have considered her as rude as she considered him. What a mess! Forgive me, Lord.

  Clara my beloved and my dear devoted family,

  As each day passes, the world as we know it is shattering around us. In this month of February, we see six, no seven, states secede and the beginning of the Confederate States of America. It is nothing more than a mirror government with their “new” constitution similar to the Constitution of the United States but with greater stress on the autonomy of each state. The Confederate Congress has elected Jefferson Davis as president and Alexander H. Stephens as vice president.